My friend Cherie has been boldly sharing her grief journey online in the most inspiring way. She’s using the pain of the loss of her sweet Mallory to shine light for those walking a similar road, and it is such a blessing. Reading her poems and engaging with her audience is so healing. Recently, she talked about fear and asked others to share about their fears. Before I knew it, I found myself typing “My greatest fear is that I will one day lose my long hidden battle with depression, leaving behind my family and friends in the weight of grief like that which you share about.”
As soon as my brain processed what my fingers were typing, I immediately deleted the comment and threw my phone across the room. What did I almost do? Other than counselors and Kyle, I am not sure I’ve ever spoken to anyone about my depression out loud. Why on earth would I share that so flippantly on the internet?
It’s been a few weeks and the Lord has not stopped pressing on my heart the need to bring darkness into light. I celebrate honesty and believe whole heartedly in the importance of knowing people deeply. Yet, here I am, unwilling to be known.
So, while I won’t just drop that flippant fear into the comment section, I can write a little more about my story…
I say all the time that my life has the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. That I’m dramatic and over the top. That I’ve been in and out of counseling my entire life and am a true believer in the power of talking things out. I’m not afraid of confrontation and I love to shoot you straight, get to the bottom of it, and move on. Even if that involves yelling and/or tears. All of this, and more, is me saying I battle depression… without saying I battle depression.
It’s not clinical depression, but a sensitivity to situational depression that rapidly escalates. For so long my depression has been so well managed that I’ll be honest, I kind of thought I was “over it”. All the years of counseling has left me with so many great tools. Plus, all the years or practice has left me with the ability to use those tools almost subliminally. On top of that, throw in an ever-deepening relationship with Jesus + ever growing faith in the power of the Holy Spirit and you’ve got a recipe for a healing. You see, healing sounds good. It sounds like a thing you’d want, but if I’m being honest, it looked more like pride in my life. Deeply rooted unconscious pride in my ability to get through life “on my own” devoid of acknowledgement that the Lord is the only reason I had the tools, the practice, and the faith to live a healthier life.
And that, my friends, is exactly where Satan wanted me. Full. Of. Pride.
In the fall of 2023, something started feeling off. I felt a need to draw near to Him as a battle began. I was praying desperately for the Lord to prepare my heart. Not long after that, Cherie’s sweet Mallory, Kyle’s Grandmama Aust and Courtney (the absolute sweetest friend of mine from our little Beech community) passed away in the span of eight months. I could write for pages about what each of these people meant to me, but for now I’ll just say it felt like too much at once. I began oscillating in these toxic cycles from deep sadness and grief to absolute guilt and denial for feeling so strongly. This wasn’t MY child, or MY grandma, or MY best friend. So many people in the world have things SO MUCH worse than me… what did I have to be so downtrodden about. I felt like I needed to turn up the Fruit of the Spirit not wallow in someone else’s grief.
You see – if I’d have been as well equipped as I thought I was, I would have noticed those toxic mood swings as the first sign of my depression returning, but I didn’t. It took a few rounds of suicidal ideations for me to say something out loud that finally made me realized I’d slid a long way back into forgotten territory. And then, as if on que, a friendship I held so deeply ended. Abruptly. With absolutely no rationale or warning that I could see or understand. The dramatic swings just got more dramatic. I was grieving and then I was trying to fix it and then I was calling myself an idiot for being so upset over something so silly. And then I was grieving again…
Eventually, I decided it was time to call in the professionals. I worked through the grief, not just of the lost friendship, but of the people that had passed in the previous year. I was reminded of some great tools and have been using them again. I am also running again. I once had a goal to run a sub-2:00 half marathon and I never reached it. I’m dreaming BIG that maybe I still can.
I don’t really have a nice bow to tie on the end of this... The Lord woke me up in the middle of the night with this story so heavy I had to get it out. I should tell you all the way he’s showed up for me even in the midst of this challenging year, but I can’t. They outnumber the stars. He provided a heart and a plan for our forever home and a buyer for our land that never even went on the market. He provided new friends and deeper kindness than I ever deserved at the start of this school year. I chose to ask God to show up as El Roi (the God who sees) during a women’s leadership event at church, and I have been brought to tears with how He has seen and provided for the most specific yearnings of my heart. Things so small I wouldn’t have dared to pray or ask for, yet He knew. He provided. Though I feel like I have walked through a valley in 2024, He has lifted me into the glorious riches of His embrace and for that I will be eternally grateful.
The battle is not over, it never is. What’s the morale here… I don’t know. Depression rarely looks how you think it’s supposed to. Cherie’s willingness to be vulnerable online is an absolute inspiration and goes far beyond the reach of others who are grieving the loss of a child. Life is hard, eternal life is better. You know, maybe this will just stay in my drafts forever. Writing it out just for myself has been a blessing. Truly, I have no idea, but I sense that the Lord still wants me to bring my darkness further into the light. My prayer is that he will show himself to me and that eventually just one person can be helped by this story.
Wherever you are, be all there. Goodnight.